Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Time.
profligacy has grown more hoary , and the false smile and heart are corroborated . At night we admit there is a . difference , when the iaded actor , released from his trammels , starts from the too faithful mirror telling what he is ; when false eye , teeth , hair , leg , shape , are deposited on the chair , and the wretched , used-up " his grace " or " my lady , " are put to bed , with what remains of them ! But as we live ' for appearances only , and for mutual deception , keep a little out of the strong light , bow , simper , smile , and say nothing , and we warrant ye , the fiction and farce will pass muster famously !
Awaken the ghosts of past years—evoke the thousand sermons , admonitions , harangues , beautiful thoughts , exquisite aphorisms , educational precepts—let the graves of past boon companions , the reminiscence of entwined friendships , speak of the shortness of life , the value of years , the necessity of preparing for another state , and , after all , when was humanity different to what it is now ? In Chaucer ' s time the Englishman was the same creature he is still ,
except in dress and language ; perhaps he sought gold a little less , but he was just as selfish , just as time-serving . Would not Druids teaze and worry people about forms and ceremonies , and consign to perdition every impugner of the sacred mistletoe , as sincerely as priests storm at each other now-a-days about candlesticks and vestments , whilst all the while the hierarchy cared only to fill their pockets at the people ' s expense , to beplasterthe rich with adulation , and to grind down the poor worker to the dust . Juvenal was wrong
so far as he said" Nil erit ulterius quod nostris moribus add at Posterity . " " There is nothing further which posterity can add to our habits . "
He imagined , that— Omne in prsecipiti vitium stetit /' that all vice was at its acme in his time ; but succeeding ages have added to the pyramid of worldly plagues , more lawyers , doctors , and railway directorsand these would sink any reputation , body or pocket ,
, national or individual , to the dust . It is true , also , ^ we are plagued by bad authors ; and servants who can read , and , if need be , copy , their masters' letters ; but our forefathers had their Babington Macaulays and small-beer poets , their doggrel and hurdy-gurdy
historians , " saying or singing" erroneous narratives ; and , though Alfred sat down to " breakfast on his burnt cakes without the Times to tell him about Guthrum ; and though England—whatever Printinghouse-square may think of it—absolutely did without that veracious or voracious newspaper—aye , even in the days of Tudors and of " Old h d
Noll , "—yet men were just as ready then as now , in all speres an positions of life , to sacrifice reputations , stab characters in the dark , misrepresent facts , garble statements , and refuse rejoinder or explanation , to their attacks , all for a groat each , with discount for slanders by the gross ! Humanity ia the same as ever , the only difference is , that we have with increased wealth and education , opened up
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Time.
profligacy has grown more hoary , and the false smile and heart are corroborated . At night we admit there is a . difference , when the iaded actor , released from his trammels , starts from the too faithful mirror telling what he is ; when false eye , teeth , hair , leg , shape , are deposited on the chair , and the wretched , used-up " his grace " or " my lady , " are put to bed , with what remains of them ! But as we live ' for appearances only , and for mutual deception , keep a little out of the strong light , bow , simper , smile , and say nothing , and we warrant ye , the fiction and farce will pass muster famously !
Awaken the ghosts of past years—evoke the thousand sermons , admonitions , harangues , beautiful thoughts , exquisite aphorisms , educational precepts—let the graves of past boon companions , the reminiscence of entwined friendships , speak of the shortness of life , the value of years , the necessity of preparing for another state , and , after all , when was humanity different to what it is now ? In Chaucer ' s time the Englishman was the same creature he is still ,
except in dress and language ; perhaps he sought gold a little less , but he was just as selfish , just as time-serving . Would not Druids teaze and worry people about forms and ceremonies , and consign to perdition every impugner of the sacred mistletoe , as sincerely as priests storm at each other now-a-days about candlesticks and vestments , whilst all the while the hierarchy cared only to fill their pockets at the people ' s expense , to beplasterthe rich with adulation , and to grind down the poor worker to the dust . Juvenal was wrong
so far as he said" Nil erit ulterius quod nostris moribus add at Posterity . " " There is nothing further which posterity can add to our habits . "
He imagined , that— Omne in prsecipiti vitium stetit /' that all vice was at its acme in his time ; but succeeding ages have added to the pyramid of worldly plagues , more lawyers , doctors , and railway directorsand these would sink any reputation , body or pocket ,
, national or individual , to the dust . It is true , also , ^ we are plagued by bad authors ; and servants who can read , and , if need be , copy , their masters' letters ; but our forefathers had their Babington Macaulays and small-beer poets , their doggrel and hurdy-gurdy
historians , " saying or singing" erroneous narratives ; and , though Alfred sat down to " breakfast on his burnt cakes without the Times to tell him about Guthrum ; and though England—whatever Printinghouse-square may think of it—absolutely did without that veracious or voracious newspaper—aye , even in the days of Tudors and of " Old h d
Noll , "—yet men were just as ready then as now , in all speres an positions of life , to sacrifice reputations , stab characters in the dark , misrepresent facts , garble statements , and refuse rejoinder or explanation , to their attacks , all for a groat each , with discount for slanders by the gross ! Humanity ia the same as ever , the only difference is , that we have with increased wealth and education , opened up